That's a very Death of a Salesman story about your grandfather, Paul.

Interesting story, paulsc.

Not particularly famous outside his field, but my great-uncle did merit an entry in the Canadian Encyclopedia and an obit in the Canadian Journal of Economics (first page only--need academic access for the rest).

Oh, and I am the black sheep of the family, having been handed the torch by my beloved uncle.

That story about your grandfather reminds me of Jimmy Buffett, paulsc.

No fame that I know of with my bunch. But I don't know most of my extended family, cousins & such.

No one in my family is famous for anything good.

I'm supposed to be a blood descendant of Pocahontas. No clear idea of what the evidence is, though.

Well, yes and no. It depends on how dig you deep. Additionally, one of my brothers is a internationally published journalist and author, but not what you'd call famous.

Oddly, the Seven Little Foys, apparently, and Nancy Kerrigan. Nancy and I share a great-grandaunt, I think, or maybe it's a great-great-grandaunt.

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I'm pretty closely related to Pat Buttram, who played Mr. Haney on Green Acres.

I recently learned that my great-great(-great?)-aunt was personal physician to the Empress of Korea.

Does that count?

Wow, BoPo, it's like looking at a picture of YOU. Spooky.

:-) (yeah, that's right, I'm using emoticons these days. What of it, tough peoples?)

Oh, and on topic, while Lily Tomlin DOES have a brother named Richard, I am not THAT Richard Tomlin.

Gaspar, baron Gourgaud was my great-etc grandfather. He was confidante and chronicler to Napoleon Bonaparte.

My great-grandfather was quite a big cheese in the early development of Canberra. He has an entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

Do in-laws count? Sir Derek Jacobi (Brit actor) is my partner's third cousin and my father-in-law is a Sir himself, for 50-odd years of medical service in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.

As close as I get is having a first cousin D who is married to Mikey of "Hay Mikey, he likes it" fame.

Which is pretty darn cool, MonkeyButter!

MonkeyButter: Mikey-likes-it is pretty darn famous! That's cool.

This is not a relation, but also my aunt was a babysitter for the Big Bopper's kids.

Actually, you'd never recognize him. Anyway, the urban legend isn't true, I can confirm that.

Oh, and he big Bopper ain't no schlub, either.

I ♥ Mikey, monkeybutter, and I'm glad to hear he didn't succumb to internal Pop Rocks excess. Would have been an awful way to go, for such a brave little guy.

My brother has done all the geneology stuff, and found that we, too, are descended from Pocahontas. You know, if you do the math, you find out that nearly everyone on the east coast is descended from her, somehow.

Said brother was national co-chair of the Green Party of the US, and received the 3rd-highest number of votes for any Green Party candidate in the US ever, which makes him kinda famous, in certain circles.

You're all related, so no set up for you lot.

How often do people say to her, "Hey, Mikey! She likes it!"

Depending on who is asked, i'm sure to be a black sheep. Baaah.

Miko:
"Why? Why?"
ok, PR time

Ha! I'm sure she says it ti him! Quite often, too. They've made a few little Mikeys.

As for black sheeps, I venture that many a Mecha are the Black Sheeps of their families. Uh, Blacks sheep?

i hope they get around as much as Pocahontas' kids. It's pretty everyone might be related to Wayne Newton. Get us tickets for the next Vegas meet up.
How many of these relation threads have we had so far?

i got accused of doing a wonderful harp recital today. Not that i did, but i'm sure the real perpetrator was Asian. i get to claim all the accolades for any Asian in a large radius. Apparently my time at Yale went swimmingly.

pretty cool

corrections give you a high comment count, donchano

and i only add corrections one fourth of the time

My dad was on America's Most Wanted.

I share a last name with an 1960's Orioles pitcher (I covet a vintage O's jersey with his name and number),a playwright and a publisher of road atlases, but I am not rlated to any of them.

"That's a very Death of a Salesman story about your grandfather, Paul."
posted by dismas 01 December

Tell me about it.

Here's a little more backstory about Ernest, whose hands I wear, down to his ring size, except for the third finger on the left hand, whose last two joints he lost to a meat packers band saw, on his version of these passed down hands, whereas I have retained them, dead of feeling though they be, thanks to a burst of RF energy many years ago, from a large broadcast transmitter.

He not only married my grandmother, but bought and sold a bungalow he really loved, and wanted to live in with her, to move back to her childhood home, and take care of her mother, when her father died. And paid rent to his mother-in-law, the whole time he lived there, as it remained her house. And saved his money, those 18+ years, because he knew, as it did eventually turn out, that he'd have to buy the house after his mother-in-law died, from her estate, thus paying off his wife's brother's and sisters.

He did live to move out of that house, 47 years after he moved into it, and I never saw a bigger smile on his face, than I did that day. He'd had a heart attack, and couldn't go up and down the stairs to the second floor, any longer.

But it was no surprise to me, that 2 years later, having put up with the daily, nearly silent, but OH-MY-GOD-WHAT-HAVE-WE-DONE complaints my grandmother made about moving down to the same town my mother and father lived in, into a single level duplex, that when the first big snowstorm of 1970 came along, Ernest put on his coat, and his gloves, and his hat with the ear flaps, and grabbed his snow shovel, and set a grimace against a larger fate, and went out and started shoveling his duplex apartment drive.

He died in the driveway, 5 or 6 minutes before the paramedics arrived. And, his insurance paid off, as he intended, and his wife moved to upstate New York, to be near her second son, who was her favorite, as Ernest knew she would.

ahhm the surname is Joyce need I say more?

My paternal grandmother kept a very intact record of our family tree. Apparently , I am related to Daniel Boone

Interesting stuff! goo--I love Derek Jacobi's work! I spent a very enjoyable Christmas avoiding the -60C cold by watching I, Claudius from beginning to end.

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Marcus Daly, Copper King. Apparently he's a household name in Butte, Montana and was mentioned in an episode of Deadwood.

Heh, I half-answered this over in the same-name thread.

My grandfather wasn't famous but he was a co-author of a very widespread "New Math" book series from the 1950s and wrote slide-rule instruction booklets for various manufacturers.

I'm probably related to a gymnast, a planetary geologist, and a few other people with my last name. My grandmother's family believes it is descended from William Penn's family (though he has no male descendants with the name Penn himself, something that disappoints a lot of people), and I have property records of them living cheek-by-jowl with known Penn cousins, but nothing definitive as yet. I need to go to Maryland and dig in their archives someday. I'm actually more concerned that I'll find that I have direct ancestors who were slave-owners (as all planters of the era basically were) than whether I'm related to "the" Penns. I am, however, definitively related to the Engle family of Quaker genealogy, which puts me in distant relation to most famous Quakers (presumably including Richard Nixon, but also a fair number of abolitionists).

My first cousins are known for being an important early Chicago punk band. I had little contact with them due to our respective parents being estranged, and hardly any knowledge of music at the time, so I never interacted with them about this.

As for Pocahontas, there really are quite a few Americans related to her besides Wayne Newton, such as George Bush (via a step-relation). Basically, if you can trace any relation to 17th century New England, you have a fair chance of being related to all the U.S. Presidents.

Interesting stuff! goo--I love Derek Jacobi's work!

Me too, elizard. My reaction when I was first told was "Cadfael? Cadfael is your cousin?". I was stoked. I am still waiting for my invite to a (any) big bash with the A-list of British theatre, alas.

Cotton, Increase and the Rev. Richard Mather.

Yes, my family introduced slavery to Christians, hybridized corn, and burned them some witches.

There are some reputed Adams relations on the other side of the family but I can't prove it.

/genealogist mode

Little Jimmy Dickens was my dad's cousin.

Also, Wayne Newton is a freak.

You probably haven't heard of any of my ancestors, but if you live in the United States, there's a good chance that you see my grandfather's work every day. He designed the Better Business Logo, the thing with the BBB and the torch that you see on stores and websites all over the place.

It always makes me happy to see it. He died when I was six, but seeing that logo everywhere makes me feel as if he's out there looking out for me and my friends.

He also designed the original American Heart Association logo. This also features a torch, which makes me wonder whether he might have been a bit of a pyro.

I'm tangentially related to the former crown princess of Jordan.